Pacific Northwest Ballet

Pacific Northwest Ballet
Categories: Performing Arts, Opera & Ballet
Neighborhood: Queen Anne
7/11/2009
Physical grace and beauty of movement are not qualities we find very often--at least not in the people we encounter at work, our health club, or most certainly not on the street--in our daily lives, which is what makes any experience with ballet or modern dance special.

(The "lesson" therein may be that true nobility inheres in talent, not in ostentatious wealth, power, or by birthright).

I had not been to a live ballet or modern dance performance since college (Pearl Lang's "Dybuuk," at Brandeis) until I saw an in-studio demonstration at Pacific Northwest Ballet. The experience certainly left me wanting to go again. Peter Boals, PNB's artistic director, is disarming.

It was heartening to find others with a greater affinity for a gazelle, a flamingo, or a feline than for an elephant, King Kong, or Godzilla, who could sit quietly and with concentrated attention while deriving both pleasure and satisfaction in the ever-evolving tapestry ("tableau vivant") of both complex and simple choreographed movements.

Despite the gloomy prognostications, classical music is not dead, with the most popular pieces being those of Jerome Robbins set to Bernstein or to Dave Brubeck.

It may be wishful thinking but having more affordable tickets for not just the student or senior citizen crowd, I think, could make the ballet more accessible to a greater swathe of the local population.

Being pretty near-sighted, though, I wonder too how much I would be able to appreciate in the sheer enormity of McCaw Hall.

Still, no DVD or PBS special can compare with a live performance.